Blues Highway Blues: You can’t separate murder from music

In his debut thriller, Eyre Price had to include a soundtrack at all costs.

There is a scene in Eyre Price’s thriller Blues Highway Blues where two hired killers have pinned a young man to the floor after breaking into his house. They hold up the telephone up so that Daniel Erickson, a former music agent with some bad debts, can hear the violence unfold on the other end. These hired hitmen have been sent after Daniel by a mob boss, and they will not hesitate to mutilate and kill anyone in Daniel's life. So in this scene, the hired hitmen do the unthinkable (no spoilers). It's the kind of scene that makes you recoil from it and then turn the page to find out what happens next.

Blues Highway Blues gallops at breakneck speed and it should please fans of thrillers. Daniel's hunters are on a mission to find him, but in the process, Daniel sets out to solve a puzzle left for him by some unseen presence. He follows clues leading him to some of the most famous historical sites of American music, and in the process he stumbles across themes of love, death, sex, and loss. The book even throws in some subtle elements of the supernatural that help raise the suspense.

The above scene may bring to mind gory moments reminiscent of a Tarantino film, and Price's novel delivers plenty of thrills in that vein. But the similarities don't end there. Just like Tarantino’s movies, Blues Highway Blues is nothing without its soundtrack. This fantasia is scored in a way that's nearly as unmistakable as the story itself. It's the rare occasion where a book comes with a soundtrack that feels like necessity, not an addition.

So Ars caught up with Price to hear more about the Blues Highway Blues project. The author talked about how he set out to produce music as a companion piece to his series of novels and the challenges he faced when trying to distribute a book and corresponding soundtrack.

Books with soundtracks—the future approaches

Blues Highway Blues “was conceived as part of a series in which I intended to mix literature with other art forms," Price said. "So I planned to do a thriller about a film maker in which I would have an independent, stand-alone film coexisting with it. I planned another in which a showing of paintings would contain clues to a thriller about a painter. Blues Highway Blues was the music installment of that series and so from its original inception I intended to create independent music in conjunction with the novel.”

These were big plans, but Price had to take things one step at a time. He wanted to focus on the music equally. So as he wrote the novel, he simultaneously wrote and composed the songs.

"I didn’t know a thing about publishing or recording," Price said. "Honestly, it was the only way I ever could have done it. If I had ever understood the roadblocks in the way of such a project I never would have undertaken it.”

Price wanted to bring Blues Highway Blues to market together with an album of music that spanned the history of American blues and rock. Clearly, it was an ambitious project. It didn’t pan out exactly like he planned, but the book was ultimately released with a companion acoustic soundtrack, Six Feet of Peace, performed by musician Tim Miller. The audio version of Blues Highway Blues also includes one of those songs.

So in the end, there was music. But Price didn't end up fully imagining his ideal soundtrack, the one that would visit all the major eras from the blues all the way to grunge. The author ran into some issues.

“I was hopelessly naïve about the undertaking,” Price said, “So when my publisher graciously explained that they couldn’t be involved in recording any of the songs I’d written, I was not sufficiently discouraged. There’s my persistence again—it soon became obvious to me that there was no way to record all of the songs as I’d written them (and heard them in my head) as representatives of various styles of American music. So I financed the recordings myself and I enlisted talented singer-songwriter Tim Miller to take my songs and interpret them as pieces with just his vocals and an acoustic guitar.”

Price continued: “I think my publisher was exceptionally kind and supportive. They made it clear that while they 'got' my project and loved the concept, there were technical and business hurdles that just couldn’t be cleared on their end. And I think that’s exactly right. They also very generously offered to market such a soundtrack along with the book in the event that I was able to get something together.”

This isn’t the first time books have been packaged with other media in order to round out a complete experience. Booktrack packages soundtracks for books already, and authors have been bundling soundtracks with their works for decades. Overall, though, it's difficult for publishers to package a print book or e-book with music in one compact entity. You can provide a download code for MP3s or bundle them as a digital package of book plus music, but it seems we are still some time away from seeing integrated combos through stores like Amazon, Apple's iBooks store, Barnes and Noble, and others.

But Price does see today as just the beginning. In his eyes, digital distribution holds a lot of promise for a more complete multimedia experience for readers. A book with a soundtrack that swells at the right moments to add more emotion would actually be very similar to what cinema did with sound. If readers demand this kind of experience, the distribution methods and supporting outlets will follow. But only those consumer habits will determine future availability, and for many readers, books are an experience they prefer in isolation.

Price isn't discouraged, though. “I personally foresee a time when every electronic book will come not only with a designated soundtrack, but with a variety of ambient background music as well," Price said. "I think you’ll see certain literary genres like mysteries integrated with video games so there are puzzles that require manipulation by the reader incorporated into the text or thrillers that have other gaming opportunities incorporated into them. And I think we will all shortly see product placement and ads incorporated into the narrative of books so that when you read about a character enjoying this product or that, the reader will be able to immediately purchase the product for themselves through their e-readers. All of that is just a natural continuation of the evolution we’re now witnessing.”

Price sees the current playing field for writers and artists as extremely competitive. Not only is there raging competition for people’s attention, but there are also concerns about piracy. Releasing exclusive music along with a book may only increase the pressure in that regard. But Price has considered all of these implications already.

“I think for any artist struggling to make a name for themselves in this extremely competitive cyber world, the biggest obstacle is simply reaching the public and getting noticed,” Price said. “While I certainly respect (and will always protect) the financial interest that my publisher has made in me, being pirated would only expose me to more readers. That’s nothing that I particularly fear. The economic reality is simply that pirating is almost by operation limited to those few artists in music, film, publishing who are at the very top of the food pyramid. So it’s not that pirating is taking money from those of us who are trying to get our careers off of the ground and make a little money while doing it. Piracy hits those who are already making crazy money and want to make certain that they get everything that’s coming to them. I can’t blame them for that, but I can’t get worked up about it either.”

For Price, this novel is just the beginning in the musical and literary travels he’s charting, even if his dreams of a true multimedia experience are still a few years away. The soundtrack for Blues Highway Blues isn't meant to be played as you read; there are no in-text notes about tracks fading in or out. Instead, the soundtrack corresponds to events that unfold throughout an entire chapter, making listening a parallel experience, not a simultaneous one.

But this is only the first installment in the Crossroads series, with more on the way. The next installment, Rock Island Rock, will be out in June of this year. That novel will not have its own soundtrack but instead will include lyrics sheets in the appendix (how very Beck Song Reader of him, right?). For now Blues Highway Blues is available—for your eyes and ears.

Promoted Comments

To have a full-time background track you're either going to have to have some repetitive looping music like background tracks for old-school games or algorithm-based music that's generated on-the-fly with a certain style for the mood that's targeted. I read about 10X faster than my wife. While she might spend a couple minutes working through a tense section I might blow through in a few seconds. Granted, I doubt anyone has speed readers in mind when composing soundtracks for books but the variable pacing issue will remain.

If they really end up putting Ads in ebooks, it will be one more reason for me to stick to traditional books.

You mean those blurbs in the inside and back cover?

Anyway, it's about time. If movies can have soundtracks, why not books? Heck, scratch & sniff, or variable textures.

From the article:

"And I think we will all shortly see product placement and ads incorporated into the narrative of books so that when you read about a character enjoying this product or that, the reader will be able to immediately purchase the product for themselves through their e-readers."

I read the book and while its not too bad, its not my cup of tea. However I would suggest avoiding the Audio book because the narrator sounds like he is intoxicated. And unlike several good audio books I have listened to, He cant seem to remember the accent and inflections he uses as the book progresses.

How does this work? Am I supposed to listen to certain tracks while reading certain chapters? How does the music keep up with my reading? Am I supposed to finish the book within 70 minutes, or do I have to put the thing on repeat ad nauseum? I don't really see what this adds.

Even if it's just general music that fits with the atmosphere of the book.. does that really make it significantly more compelling?

This article seems half finished. Why couldn't his publishers be involved in producing the soundtrack? What were the road blocks? There are countless instructional books for learning instruments that include CDs, I own a few myself, how are these different (obviously the content is but how do the logistics of publishing them differ)?

To have a full-time background track you're either going to have to have some repetitive looping music like background tracks for old-school games or algorithm-based music that's generated on-the-fly with a certain style for the mood that's targeted. I read about 10X faster than my wife. While she might spend a couple minutes working through a tense section I might blow through in a few seconds. Granted, I doubt anyone has speed readers in mind when composing soundtracks for books but the variable pacing issue will remain.

It isn't accompanying music for the book, it's the soundtrack. Think about the music from a movie or TV series.

For a movie the term soundtrack can refer to either the full musical accompaniment as it's playing in the background of the movie, or the abridged tracks that are released separately. So it is reasonable for there to be confusion about which meaning is appropriate for this project.

To have a full-time background track you're either going to have to have some repetitive looping music like background tracks for old-school games or algorithm-based music that's generated on-the-fly with a certain style for the mood that's targeted. I read about 10X faster than my wife. While she might spend a couple minutes working through a tense section I might blow through in a few seconds. Granted, I doubt anyone has speed readers in mind when composing soundtracks for books but the variable pacing issue will remain.

There was a Japanese website where they got a bunch of well known anime and manga authors to play a Tabletop RPG. They later compiled each game session as an epic narrative and used the approach you mention of having long background songs that loop, but they solved the problem of different reading speeds by adding triggers that gradually changed the music as you reached a new section (or a particular tense section such as a battle).

This would be possible to recreate in ebooks, adding a lot of value to them, but it would also require creating a specific ebook format or modifying an existing one to support this.

To have a full-time background track you're either going to have to have some repetitive looping music like background tracks for old-school games or algorithm-based music that's generated on-the-fly with a certain style for the mood that's targeted.

Quite a few people in the interactive fiction community have done just that. The works vary from linear stories with just minor interactivity to increase immersion, to choose-your-own-adventure type stories, to highly interactive worlds/games.

It isn't accompanying music for the book, it's the soundtrack. Think about the music from a movie or TV series.

For a movie the term soundtrack can refer to either the full musical accompaniment as it's playing in the background of the movie, or the abridged tracks that are released separately. So it is reasonable for there to be confusion about which meaning is appropriate for this project.

Cesar Torres / Cesar is the Social Editor at Ars Technica. His areas of expertise are in online communities, human-computer interaction, usability, and e-reader technology. Cesar lives in New York City.